The Undying Magician - Book 1 - Chapter 34 - Ice Cream and Strategy (Patreon)

                                                                                        Nathan

                                                        Year 2849 | Month 5 | Day 16 | Sunday
                                                                                 The next day

I slowly raise the spoonful of mint flavored ice cream to my lips before ever-so-gently placing it into my mouth and savoring the flavor.

That delectable flavor of-

“So, Nathan, I heard you were training alone with a beautiful woman in the Magical Warfare classroom after your last class yesterday,” Aidan says, almost making me cough out the ice cream in my surprise.

I jerk my head towards him whilst swallowing my ice cream with actual fear on my face.

Beautiful?

That monster?

No, no, no.

That’s the last thing I’d call her.

The others look both confused and amused at the fearful look on my face, likely having assumed it was for something else.

I look around the area for a few seconds before quietly whispering, “Please don’t joke about that monster. She’s terrifying.”

My words wipe the amused looks right off of their faces, leaving nothing but confusion behind as I focus on my ice cream again.

Maybe the first ten or so minutes of that ‘training session’ could have been considered training. But the rest of it was more comparable to torture than anything else.

I mean, what sort of training involves cutting me to shreds until I’m able to defend myself from her attacks?

She cut my damn arm off! Twice!!!

I shiver slightly at the memory before grabbing another scoop of ice cream and putting it into my mouth.

Please, let me forget the monster and focus only on this mint ice cream… and maybe the mock battle on Monday.

Actually, now that I think about it, Instructor Leo didn’t mention anything to the class about the mock battles.

I finish the ice cream in my mouth before looking up and mentioning, “By the way, we have mock battles tomorrow for Magical Warfare.”

The others – who were still staring at me – turn to look at each other for a second, only to focus on me again as Aidan asks, “Did the instructor tell you?”

I nod my head, no longer caring if they find out on their own about my teacher and apprentice relationship with the instructor.

And the looks on their faces make it pretty obvious that they want to ask but aren’t sure if they should.

Aidan seems to let it go for now as he asks, “So should we practice working as a group more today? We’ve only worked together once in battle, and that was just against those drones.”

I simply shake my head and answer, “Unfortunately, we can’t. I already asked the instructor if we could use the BFS to practice, and he said no. That he wants to see our first time working together against intelligent enemies himself.”

Which I’m honestly fine with. It would be better to only have to explain my healing once if its necessary. And explaining it to the entire class at once, with the instructor there to back me up, would be safer and allow for less questions from the other cadets.

“Couldn’t he just watch us as we’re training?” Rebecca asks with a frown from next to Cyria.

I turn to look at her as Amelia answers from beside me, “He’s a Class C magician under the Ashford family, so I doubt he would use his spare time just to supervise one team in their training.”

Unsurprisingly, the others turn to stare at me as she says this. Meanwhile, I just casually grab another scoop of ice cream before placing it into my mouth.

Hmm, this ice cream is probably the best thing at this academy.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                                       Year 2849 | Month 5 | Day 17 | Monday
                                                                                The next day

“-and the next mock battle will be between Nathan’s team, and Loris’s team,” Leo says as the two teams that just finished their mock battle finish leaving the BFS.

My teacher then begins messing with the panel again, causing the inside of the simulator to turn into a different battlefield than the one the last two teams fought in. One with a much nicer atmosphere to it, with plenty of light covering a pleasantly quiet, green meadow.

The meadow has a few tall hills, along with several powerful-looking trees scattered throughout the hills, and one enormous valley.

“Just like with the last fights, you may not use offensive magic,” Leo says, repeating the same things he’s said for each of the other mock battles so far, “this mock battle is meant to test your weapon and teamwork skills. Not your attack magic. So keep it to healing and barrier spells.”

I look over at Arthur’s team as he walks up with them towards the BFS before focusing on the sniper walking next to him.

Of course, I’d be going up against the team of one of those two…

The man begins to open his mouth to speak but is interrupted by Arthur putting his arm out in front of him, with his bow draped over his shoulder.

I let out a mental sigh of relief at that before nodding my head towards Arthur, who doesn’t give any response and simply walks into the BFS with the rest of his group. Although the sniper still manages to send me a smirk on the way.

“Let’s go,” I say to my team before walking into the BFS on the opposite side from Arthur Loris’s team. Once we enter, I immediately feel the familiar uneasiness of entering the simulator when it’s stretched so wide, but it doesn’t last long, and I quickly begin to survey the land.

“You have ten minutes to prepare, starting now,” Leo’s voice echoes through the BFS as a ten minute countdown appears above the valley. “The goal of this mock battle is to either capture the enemy team’s flag, or to incapacitate each of your enemies, which involves you tying them up.”

As soon as I hear him, I finish surveying the land and focus on the opposing team’s location.

“One important aspect of this battlefield that you should take into note,” the instructor continues speaking, “is that a ‘red blanket’ will drop over the valley every five minutes, which will cancel out any sniper rifle bullets fired into the area.”

My brows furrow slightly at that before I inspect each member of their team.

Their team is made up of one sniper, one archer, two sword users, and a spear user. And from what I’ve learned from watching the other teams, the sniper is better than I am, the archer is only a little worse than Rebecca, the sword users are okay but nothing to write home about, and the spear user is strange. They seemed to have some difficulty following orders, so I might be able to use that.

Not sure why they let them into their team in the first place though. Because that’s a pretty glaring issue in a team.

The terrain in between us includes a single large valley, with both of our teams currently being situated on hills. Each of the hills have large trees scattered around them, which would make great cover for my sniping as long as I can find a sturdy enough tree to hold my weight.

Meanwhile, the valley itself is completely barren of any trees, leaving it as a bit of a dead zone, making it free game for snipers. When that ‘red blanket’ isn’t up, that is.

Lastly, there are several tall, but not very long hills scattered to the sides of the valley, making it a difficult trek through that direction. But a lot safer when the red blanket isn’t up.

Anyways, time to use what I’ve learned in Tactics and Battle Strategies so far.

I continue looking over everything for nearly an entire minute before turning to the others and saying, “To begin, it’s doubtful that any of them are going to try crossing the valley when the red blanket isn’t up, but I’ll still keep an eye on them anyways.”

I then crouch down slightly while pointing towards one side of the valley and saying, “From what I’ve seen of him so far, Arthur seems like the cautious type, so my guess is that he’ll either go down one side with all of his team, with the exception of their sniper,” before turning to point down both sides as I continue, “or he will go down one side with one of his close combat fighters while sending the other two down the other way and leaving the sniper behind.”

“Lastly,” I begin whilst standing up again, “he might stay on their hill, next to their flag, waiting for us to come to them. There are a few other possibilities as well that we should keep in mind though, such as them only sending two down a single side, but these three were the ones I could see as the likeliest ones at the moment.”

Especially with how untrustworthy that spear user seems.

And with that, I begin to create and go over several different plans with them before focusing on the one that I feel will work the best.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Discord Invite:

https://discord.gg/R7M6QNRm7y

Top Web Fiction Link:

http://topwebfiction.com/listings/the-undying-magician/